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tv   Morning Joe  MSNBC  September 27, 2012 6:00am-9:00am EDT

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people up? >> up early and excited to know that ed hocky wbe o field. >> the thing we missed the most in this whole lockout is the presence and guns of the guns o hochuli. there's a picture of it on the computer. he's got the best guns in the business. and the refs are bktogh "morning joe" starts right now. romney just released an ad in which, for the fst time he speaks directly to camera. in all thether adsyou don't utr hce a see g t thecamera him walking around. the goal is to show he does care about americans who are struggling financially. he does a pretty good job with it. >> it many americans are struggling to find work in today's economy. too many of those whore payc.ng are liaycheck to
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acare ling in poverty than when president obama took office. and 15 million more are on food stamps. my plan will create 12 million new jobs over the next four years. we shoul'teasure compassion by how many pele are on wee. hosuomio by how many people are able to get off welfare and get a good paying job. i'm mitt romney, and i approved this message. >> i think that ad just makes my odorning, it's thursday, september 27th, as you take a look at a wet times square in new york city. i'm in chicago this morning, but with us in new york city wh willie geist, our national affairs editor for "new york" magazine andnbit analyst, john heilemann. also former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve ratner and nbc news chief affairs correspondent
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and ht of "andrea mitchell reports." >> we have affairs. >> andrea mitchell. aninasto f "the politico playbook," executive executor jim vandehei. of course, willie, we've got a lot to talk about. let's start really quickly with the refs! >> they're back. >> we've got some breaking news. y,'s veryxc bseu, little she's 9 years old. she plays in the soccer league. and the parents have had to ref over the past couple weeks because those guys have gone off to the nfl, but it's taken care of now. >> that's great news. >> drilled down deep. a few hours ago,hel a referees union announced they have reached a tentative agreement that will end the lockout and bring the original -- the regular officiating crews back to the field. and it starts tonight. quick turnaround. the ravens host the browns in a thursday night game. the deal good through the 20 er salary for officials.
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they'll go up to $205,000 a year by 2019. all kinds of things inside this deal. bottom line, joe, the nfl realized it coun't do this for another week after that debacle on monday night. the packers had a precious win taken away from them in the nfl. thatoulde difrenc ben ng playoffs and winning the super bowl. they couldn't have this for another week. i think roger goodell was humbled a little when he saw the outcry ove this. it was leading national newscasts. it was on the front page of newspapers. the fans were furious aut it. and they reached a 11th hour deal, d t rere bn thfield tonight. >> and the nfl got pounded by all sides. i didn't hear a signingle talk radio guy yesterday, sports radio guy supporting the nfl. i didn't hear anybody on espn. i mean, this was a black eye for the nfl. so they had to bend, and they d. th's gat n heounooes the field, john heilemann back from -- willie, seriously, i think he broke the world record for the most emmy awards in an
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altered ste. this was like doc ellis pitchg a -hrn acid. congratulations, john heilemann. welcome back. >> i just want to say, doc ellis has got notng on me because he was only on lsd. >> you mixed it up. hey, willie, let's go to the race for the president. obvisly,ot goi on thol looking good. mitt romney saying he's not paying attention to the polls. you're having a lot of his supporters saying, well, you don't pay any attention to the polls. i heard walter mondale say that the night before the election. a lot of desperation going on on the far ght, but what's aserocus on the swing states. the candidates in virginia today, one of 30 states where early voting is already under way. it's a ste president obama won in 2008 by more than six points. and where a polling average from real clear politics shows him right now at this moment up about 5po. erboantes holding rallies in ohio,
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crisscrossing the state, sometimes almost running into each other they were so close campaigning. mitt romney tried to brush back suggestions his campaign is faltering there after that "new york timebsnnc inm n points down in ohio. >> i'm very pleased with some polls, less so with other polls. but frankly at this early stage, polls go up and down. i don't expect to get 100% of the vote. know i'm not going to get 100%. i hope to get 50 plu percent and ke sure that i become the next preside. >> tnguthols yesterday, mitt romney cited gallup and rasmussen, a couple of national polls that says the numbers are even. >> wait, willie, i don't understand. why would he cite the gallup poll, which iould usually cite the glup poll if i were a reblican candidate becau the gallupoll llit 's the current gallup poll looking like? >> well, there's the daily gallup tracking poll showing president obama up six points in the points. maybe he wanted to focus on rasmussen. >> maybe rasmussen.
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john heilema, yo hear a lot of peoploteople ie thmnamn because they know they're in trouble, and they're focused on it, and i think that's a good sign. but you talk to -- you hear a lot of people on talk radio, and you watch certain cable news channels, and ey're screeching about how the polls are rigged. romn's people know they're in wnut t in ohio.ght? even the fox news poll shows romney losing in a lot of these swing states. they understand they're in trouble. do they believe they've got a chance to rn it around? >> they do and they do. they know they're in tuble and ieli b to play the e polls or bias game in the last couple days. but pretty half-heartedly as far as i can see. you know, they argue that they're within the margin of error in ohio. a lot of people don't really understand howargin of error works. so you can b prey far behind anil wnhegin of error because it applies to both candidates. when something says a 4.5%
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margin of error, they'd have to be nine points apart. they realize they are significantly downn ohio, they're significantly down in the swing states. they know that -- ty think that govnoro, td er twe very happy with. they think it was very -- a very effective ad. they think that they're sharpening his economic message. they know that they need to do that. they think it's still possible to win, but they realize as we all do that it's going to take a couple really big momts in that fst debat where romney's nain a substantial way. it happened in 2004 for john kerry. it could happen again, but time is running out and they know that. >> jim vandehei, there are a lot of things you can look at in this romney campaign especially since the convention and point to them and say my god, how coulthey have been that dumb? hoou thehave mhi mistake or that mistake? but looking for generally, taking a bird's-eye view, i think the thing that surprised me so much is how badhe economy is doing, how the president got everything he wanted for the first two years, how he's got noxcuses for
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bad onomw,un for re-election. if you're in a political campaign. and yet the romney campaign seems to change messages every day. a lot like the mccain campaign. more focused on tactics than the overall -- let's just ane strategy. karl rove had a strategy in 2000 and 2004 before he started, and he stuck with it the entire campaign. i don't see that focus here with romney's top advisers. >> there hasn't been that focus. and i think what's really blindsed the campaign, they're llatus discussed. what's really, really worries them is that the right track number coming out of the convention, the number of people who feel like the country's headed in a better direction, that that number really shot up after the democratic conventions anthat they're picking that up in swing states, in a lot o thseraces. and that suggests a mood shift in the electorate that they don't fully understand. they think it has something to do with the convention. maybe a little bit to do with
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the economy in some of these swing states that the economy's still not good, but there are at least signs of the housi front that it might be gng a d t'tlly have a message. they never had a positive message, a very specific message of listen, here's five specific things i will do differently i i'm elected president. if i do those things, it will have an appreciable effect on your life. they never did th. that's what they're gppli wino s like almost seech day groping for it because there's still not clarity of message if you listen to these events or if you watch the coverage or read his speeches. they're still working on that. >> andrea, the early voting, too, is something i don't think enough people lk about. st elecon, 08fll ballots were cast early. early voting has started in many state, and that's why time is of the essence for mitt romney here. >> the narrative has been that he has this moment next week at the debate. but early votingas already ted so many places and d that's why the debate, as
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important as it is, is not possibly determinativdeterminat. and it was very clear in ohio at tliow e advsi that devastating that 47% videotape was because what he's now trying to communicate is this compassion. he's really changed his message in the last 48 hours, let's say. you know,hat was really very critical. >> one thing about early voting, though, there's a lot of early voting going on, b there's a vemaumofci vo ie country. the people who are voting early are people who are committed, the people who decided a long time ago. the undecideds, if they've waited ts long, they're going to wait a little lonr. i understand. >> my point is if stneee tdebate, those decided voters could change. there are still people who given the possibility of what we saw in 1984 with ronald reagan and in 1980 with ronald reagan and
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jimmy carter where there really was a md change. atjoaderce to t's also rbe john kerry in 2004, he moved the needle, but he didn't move the needle nearly far enough. and the fact is that in 18 of the last 19 presidential elections whosever been leading at this point has led the populate >>em h c kerry came, if he had won a small number in ohio, he would have been president. >> i understand that. >> and also if he had gnat gone windsurfing in nantucket. willie, the thing is we tal rend meoe in the eo, i'm heari romney campaign as every day goes by, they understand more and more that they made a huge mistake with that libyan press conference. i'm not going to say that it was sort of that september 15th moment, the econo is sod, bun mn last time, but i can't tell you how many
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pollsters are telling me that that was -- it made him look unpresidential. "the wall street journal" leading with their editorial today, "the libya debacle." ng, mot looks likeding outbo a gross security failure. and you know, something the romney campaign told me, this is the biggest mistake we made on libya. if you give the media a chance to talk about politics or policy, they'll talk about politi every time. and we get out inro it so all everybody talked about those first few days was the politics of it. but the policy looks, willie, more and more like a gross security failure. you've got so many warnings coming in d so many warnings that were ignored. now the administration, the lead of "theew yk tiin at it may have been an al qaeda hit. but "the times" said there's no evidence on that. mitt romney, again, that's another -- it's a political blunder. and they've made too many of them. >> andrea, we had secretary of
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state hillary clinton herself yesteryayingeie there is an al qaeda link to the attack on the consulate in libya. >> in moments we were told by state department officials she didn't mean to say that, that that wasn't what she was saying. she was on a conference on terrorism and she was not linking to benghazi. it's stillot established a fesheew times" writer is the only person there among all of the reporters. the transcript does show that she made that connection. but they were all saying at the u.n. that -- >> she's not the first to suggest that. >> matthew olsson testified to it. nfn e ve whether there was or wasn't terrorism, how the administration handled it has been defused by romney having gone ahead with that press conference, not having reinforcements and said all those stupid things, he's lost the high ground on that issue. >> this is a perfect example. this conversation right here makes my point and makeshe t hene staffers who are concerned that there is still confusion, there is still
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chaos in the white house over exactly what happened in benghazi, exactly why a u.s. ambassador was killed, and yet he stepped in front of that stwh iuse look at the situation, willie, the worse it's going to look for the president. >> they looked at it in the short term as a political moment of opportunity and didn't think about the long-term impact of it. another interesting thing yesterday, joe, is the raing mmn b h campaign,e bringing this back up, he's had sustained attacks, of course, over what he's called obamacare. the president's health re law. in an interview with nbc news, romney highlighted his own massachusetts health care reform as proof that he does, in fa, care about 100% of americans. >> throughout this campaign as well, we've talked about my record in massachusetts. don't forget, i got everybody in my state insured. 100% of the kids in my state have health insurance. i don't think there's anhing that shows more empathynd care about the people of this cntry
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than tt kind of co. >> john heilemann, shining a light now on his record on health care in massachusetts. remarkable. >> and offering a tacit endorsement of obamacare in the process. look, governor romney is -- one of the great stories think over the last two years that he's been running, a tt a he he is proud of the law. and he tried to find a way in the primaries to be for his own law, not give that up and say, i'm proud of what we did in massachusetts, but he knew that he couldn't be -- he had to figure out way to also be against obamacare. diusitofay ilf in this love my own law, but it's not good law for the rest of the country, even though i said that in an op-ed two years ago, i now just claim that in order to get through the republican primaries. it's always been an impossible straddle, one that maybe he had to do in order to get through this republican primary electorate. but now finds himlf ihi ridiculous position of having to -- while he should be proud of, a law he is proud of, that he hasn't been able to embrace
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it again because of the complicated primary dynamics. this is probably where he should ha been all along, but he's now been so contradictory on it ov timsaroee i eving him the kind of political advantage it might have under other circumstances. >> you know it shows two political weaknesses on romney's part. the first is what conservatives have been complaining about, especial over the past month, mainly off camera, is that he d't- he can't talk like a reagan or a thatcher. he doesn't understand -- like, for instance, a good example on healthare reform, john ingler, when he was governor of michigan pentwitheacarnors w reform. and we conservatives said great, do what you want to do in michigan, in florida, in california. we'll have 50 legislative laboratories, and that's what we believed, the best ideas survive. d then if the federal government wants to implement some of those ideas, that's fine. no b nna nd,
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we'll figure it out. it's called federalism. and mitt romney never was able to explain that in a way that paul ryan or, you know, a lot of other conservatives could have explained it in two or three seconds. yes, i did that in massachusetts, but let me tell you something. eswon michigan, doesn't work in mississippi, doesn't work in minnesota. we've got 50 different states, and let's have experimentation. let's have competition. let's have legislative laboratories and see what suits ea sta's restsst hese that. he could have explained that away in january in iowa and could have been talking about this bill for the past eight, nine months in an excited, positive way. another thing, steve ratner, i want to go to you on this lk- er w talked tose y governor ed rendell who said that he was so impressed with mitt romney when he went up to massachusetts. and mitt romney was explaining to him all the details of this
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health care plan and all the great things that it did for the sssedents, for the people of anatre going man, this guy is so impressive. ed said i see no connection between that mitt romney and this mitt romney. you've talked about the remarkable things he's done on wall street. what he di with bain capital, what a great american success d y as well, there's a huge disconnect between that mitt romney and the mitt romney that we're seeing bumblg around on the campaign trail. it seems that while presidential elections elevate some like reagan and clinton, they diminish others like mitt romney. o fundamentally kind of technocrats and businesspeople look at what he did in massachusetts and say he got a lot of stuff done, worked with the rest of the government, et cetera, et cetera, got health care done, this is how government should function,ut athat ppen outheel obvio cagnil tt he was pushed into places, into corners, into positions that he
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may or may not actually believe in, but which portray him and create an image of him in very, very different light. and so now we are left with this kindf bum eling candidate w isn't even really sure wtis sedut saying he wanted to repeal the bush tax cuts. then he had his own 20% tax rate cut with no way to pay for it. it's not really clear where he stands vis-a-vis ryan and ryan's budget he promised us his own budget, but it has yet to appear. and so there is no real atsdi himself out of the primary season. >> still about 40 days till election day. time to turn around. steve, we'll look at your charts a little later. coming up next, we'll bring in chuck todd joe klein of "time" magazine and paul simo rr wngto also going to join us. and up next, jim vandehei with a look at the "politico playbook" and steve ratner with reasons that may explainhe
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surge in the lls. first bill karins with a utulye rainy est. areas, new york city one of them. we saw that with our times square shot. another area, thunderstorms pushing into portions of jersey. if you're leaving the house in philadelphia, the rain has begun. 95 from philly t wilmon prly o w highway drives. eventually these will work from southern jersey from long branch towards atlantic city. i mentioned new york city, just some light rain. probably only goingo last about another hour or two. a little slow morning drive there. th airports shouldn be too bad around new york. osow and thunderstorms os w down around d.c. to philadelphia, they could pop up at any time late this afternoon especially if we get sunshine during the daylight hours. new england, you look dry. some of the best news of the night, heavy rainfall falling in the drought areas from nor texas to ksas tola. e s some significant rains. oklahoma city, two inches of rain. that's a good start. so we have beautiful, cool
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weather, the northern half of the country. still warm and kind of humid, thsouthern half. and everywhere in the middle there is where we've been dealing with a little bit of rain. the forecast for today, i don't thinwe'll see too many areas there.th just some spots with some scattered showers like new york city. we leave you with a shot of top of the rock, new york city, not too bad with that light rain coming down. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. [ male announcer ] when this hotel added aflac to provide a better benefits package... oahhh! [ male announcer ] it made a big splash with the employees. [ duck yelling ]
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welcome back to "morning joe." let's take a look at the "morning papers." we're going to start with "the washingt post." the lack of communication between the romney campaign and conservative super pacs. ybe ggnint advantage to president obama leading up to election day. by having one central media strategy, "the washington post" reports that the obama campaign is able to spend cash more
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efficiently on advertising in battleground states. in comparison the article says athod ti n ads are mor conflict with the message pusd by the romney campaign. and from our parade of papers, "the seattle times," the pew research center finds 22.4 million households wereolding college debt in 2010, that's 19% of american families. ghuiates and a rise a in 89. in college enrollment are two contributing factors for that increase. "the boston globe," the head of the cherokee nation is caing on senator scott brown to apologize f what he calls the racist a offsive actions of thesenator'sstaff,ome er tser'stf. it was in response to this video where several brown staffers could be seen doing indian war chants and tomahawk chops at a campaign rally. senator brown has challenged elizabeth warren's claim that she is of native american heritage. brows campaign releasea gremt n oer not a full apology, saying his
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staffers got their one and only warning on that. jim vandehei still with us. you're talking about this morning that race in missouri, todd akin still has a chance, reports politico. yeah. me tol are not great for todd akin ever since he made those comments that got him in a heck of a lot of trouble in missouri and certainly with republicans he's now down in a state that republicans have to win if they want to win back control of the senate and what's interesting is it' a little -- it's a case study in di ie rli party. you have rick santorum, newt gingrich, other conservatives rallying around akin and calling on washington leaders to put money into that race. they still think it's winnable. in an interview with us, akin said, listen, my eyes have been opened. detand conservatism. he's talking about mitch mcconnell who runs the republican conference. and he was talking about myt romney and karl rove and all the other people who distanced
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himself from him over his en does the republican senator ideal committee start to put money back into the race? they promised not to. we heard they're rethinking that decision, because they have to win it or they're n going to win a clear majority in the senate. >> boy, john heilemann, that puts h i a difcult ti he,n saying that there's some people in washington that don't understand conservatism. i don't think that's the case. i think, again, and i quote nicole wallace who says, you know, people are debating about whether we'll be the conservative party, the moderate party, i'm just tired o us uk t sd party, the stupid party selects akin when they know he's the least likely to win a general election and get harry reid out of the majority leader position. you look at the loss in nevada with sharron angle, in delaware last ar, ae davet anr rs. we republicans could be in the majority except for a couple of really stupid decisions on the
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primary level that we all saw coming. everybody knew if mike cassell n in delaware two years ago, at selveke here's another example of akin. i don't see this as a battle for the heart and soul of the republican party. i see this as a battle between stupid and tactically smart. >> yes. todd akin is alnd a litical, you know, should be a political pariah. and the effort of much of the republican establishment tried to get him out of that race doesn't reflect the lack of understanding of conservative values but reflects, as you said, joe, the desire to try to winnd distance themselves from gho , i sa plainly not fit to be in the united states senate, given some of his views. but it is possible, as jim vandehei said, it's possible he could win this race. and it's clear tt a lot of republicans and the republican establishment now looking at the mathrehinking aut cg
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backin tnk the republican senatorial committee is very likely to put money into this race. i think the polls will tighten. as horrific as it will be to many people not just on the left but in the middle of the electorate, i think there's a reasonable chance he could win this race. >> not oy do igree with roy blunt did., e, at he is moving up in leadership, and he came out and supported akin yesterday. so that is -- >> the senator from michigan. >> yeah, that's the leading indicator. that tells you that the republican committee is going to go full in, and they see this as their way to rn nt a itllutegng control. and i can tell you that some of the very people now supporting him are republicans who tell me that working with him in the house has been horrible, that they jt think he's a nightmare, but they thk that he could be the solution to winning the senate. >> interesting, too, tha he's running a campaign not jt agaitlaas but against establishment republicans and national media, people like you, john heilemann. >> he's all in with the tea party, baby. he's with those that brung him.
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next, the nfl and referees reach a late-night deal to end the lockout. unfortunatelfor jimeh comes about three days too late. what this means to the nfl's brand. that's next. [ woman ] ring. ring. progresso. i just served my mother-in-law your chicken noodle soup but she loved it so much... i told her it was homemade. everyone tells a little white lie now and then. butow she wants my recipe [ ears his throat ] [ softly ] she'ight behin me isn't she ma annncer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. to meet the needs of my growing business. but how am i going to fund it? and i have to find a way to manage my cash flow bter. [ female announcer ] our wells fargoankers are her listen,
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welcome back to "morning joe." it's 6:33. joining us now on the phone to discuss that deal we told you about at the top of the show, bringing the refs back to the l toght,uick arou thbrowns/ravens game. and this weekend. we've got on the phone sports editor for "the nation" and founder of edgeofsports.com, dave ziron. welcome. winners andlosers, who got the betternd? there aut a positively. remember the whole issue of this deal was about their pension and whether they would even have a pension. roger goodell said they shouldn't have a pension because the nfl commiioner said, well, i don't have a pension, so why should they have a nsion, leaving out th he makes $20 d th othhiha t tgo to keep their pension for another five years. and they also were able to have
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more referees hired in not out of the existing pool that makes up their salary, and they're going to have 25% raises for the duration of the contract over the next seven ars. t vweor se. >> amazing that the -- steve ratner, we were just talking about the future of the league or this season hinged on a 401(k) plan. >> well, it's so interesting cause you compare this to the battles out in the midwest and elsewhere over pensions and how th're being ndle and here ye sti whma i'm oversimplifying, the public seems to care more about football than they do about teachers and firemen and policemen because of pressure to give them at they wanted and get them back to work was intense. >> the outcry w too big. t ow it wasn't just top espn, deadspin or online sports websites, it was national news. >> it was the president of the united states. >> yeah, him, too. >> it was bill clinton oyour show. "morning joe." and that got the most publit
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by of wa oount interview with president clinton, which was very interesting. it was also all manner of politicians from across the board. from not just the president but small-town mayors to people like scott walker and paul ryan. i mean, that's really like turned it into a big story. it's like, w, s er e same person who doesn't think we need trained union teachers and firefighters really believes that we need trained union officials on the field for the nfl. it turned it into the kind of story that could not be contained by the sports pa. >> paul ryanants these guys to have exact theameen the nanyb else to have. >> yeah. and that turns it into all kinds of fodder that really does transcend the sports world. >> i was going to sit back in chicago and say nothing because i like dave, but seriously, you guysolitizthit paic by the way, these refs, you know what the difference between the nfl and a lot of these states are?
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the nfl has a lot of money. >> yes. >> a lot of these states are out of money because they promised -- cannot believe i ha to say this. ayuars hend destroy the rest of this wonderful story. go ahead, willie. >> i hate to say, i always hate to say i agree with joe about anything, but there really is huge difference in the sense that youave a league that's -- there's no public money in the league. it's a bunch of billionaire thince pensions from the referees, not like where there's public money involved and where there's powerful teacher unions. >> look at ratner smirking. he knows that he's demagoguing this. >> the fact is it wasaulya who id g tmk and fire, you know, president obama. i mean, he made that political connection, not anyone else. >> i'm just trying to point out the irony of the situation. there's a little bit of irony here. i recognize all the differences. >> just a little bit. >> just a little bit of irony. >> steve just had spathwith e ioeowrs.
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>> nobody sympathizes with the billionaire owners, but they're flush with cash. there are a lot of us that only want to be tougher on public unions, not because we don't want them tbe paid more, but because we don't want our chilenbe sad wi yo know, bankruptcy. but anyway, let's talk football. enough of this. >> it would be just so -- i'd be guilty of journalistic malpractice if i didn't point out that public subsidies play a huge role in why the nfl is so 'sotri mey that's lace. made it the most successful league. it's massive public subsidies from every single nfl city. >> and i'm against that, too. >> they didn't build it. >> wondnyor taxpayer domes. i think we can all agree. dave zirin of "the nation." >> thank you, dave. >> through a that, there is a
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welcome back to "morning joe." as you look at the sun rising over the united states capitol. time for our must-read op-ed. this morning, "the wall street jourl." "it's always the economy, stupid. what mr. oma won say i t nancial crisis resulted from the implosion of a housing market transformed into a toxic landfill by congress, regulators, fannie, fredd and mortgage packagers. the bush policy was a bystander. also left unsaid by mr. obama but free for the telling by mr. romney is that as the u.s.
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unemployment rate hit 9.5% in june 2009 and a shocked public was looking for a response, the new president introduced the afrdabar a for the next few months. when mr. obama signed the law into march in 2010, the unemployment rate was 9.8%. if a opponen wanted to scribe this in partisan terms, he might saytrent edn entitlement dream while the economy burned. >> i think there's a certain spin on it. i think the president's argument would be when you become president, you usually get a couple years to getour big things done. health care was something he identified early on as a big thing that needed to get done, and he was goi tse h political capital to get that done. and obviously in retrospect, i think we would all agree the economic recovery has been slower, but he felt the stimus program and other things he was doing would be enough to start this economy on the right trend, and it did, just not as quickly ase would have all lid.
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>>oe? west i think daniel henninger makes the point so many conservatives would like to make. that's not only the frustration of the paper but also a lot of other conservatives that can't believe mitt romney isn't makin sd amk case. a lot of people will disagree with what he said, with what i believe, but i think it was political malpractice for barack obama to focus for - henninger sain nt isor like a year, year and a half battle. to focus on that for a year, year and a half while the economy was burning. while you had unemployment of over 9%. and since then, lo, we've had trillion-dollar deficits. every single year, he's added $5 u'adhe bailouts.tiolde you've had so many things that mitt romney could run on, a he hasn't been able to do it. willie, that is the ongog
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frustration that this man has been given more material than any republican nominee since rona rean in 19,e can't seem to connect the dots and explain why a conservative economic world view should be used to turn this economy ound. it is a daily frustration for conservatives. >> and daniel hop m romy tupsnt a the debate six days from now. steve, let's inside these numbers. you've got some charts explaining president obama's recent surge in the polls. >> yes, because while i agree with a lot of what joe said, there are someubstantive reasons why president obama should be doing better at the moment. th don't get as much tentn. so'salk litab. first, nobody is happy with the state of the economy at the moment. 2% growth with 8% unemployment. but as we've talked about on this show, it's the trend as much as absolute levels that determine how people feel. this is an historil chart of economic oimism going back to '09. wn o people's opinion where they started up with 42% being
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economically optimistic that things are going to get better. it went steadily down into the summer of '11 partl because of the weak economy, partly because nc t i b climbing back up with a few hiccups all the way back up to 42% right at the peak where it was during the obama presidency. so the question is why are people feeling a little better about the economy? of course,ou see this in some of t other pollss well. let's lookt three indicator that really homehen i cotondua and what they have. the first is disposable personal income. we've talked about the pressures on income on this show, and there are real pressures on incomes. but there's al a little bit of good news, which is real disposable per capita inco. that's a mouthful, b that's eiocket every month, has actually been on a pretty steady rise since last fall. and so if you look at trends, there's more money going into people's pockets, and they are spending it.
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consumer spending is up faster than it has bn in several years. a cond tng that' very rt tpl air prices. the loss of home equity was devastating. you're now seeing for the first time -- we've had some false starts as you see down here as the housing market hit bottom. but you're now seeing for the first time a rise in housing vaes that most economists believe is sustnabl thie we nff bottom. and you had a 5.9% increase in house prices this year. the strongest in two years. new home sales are up. new constructions are up. there's a lot of evidence that house prices are doing a little bit better. >> hey, stevo t'some nhe, obsl i am curious, though, you talked about -- you talked about disposable income. obviously, real wages are down. they've been down over the past four years. also, the unemployment situation, very bad. and yet, youooktom these -- the indicators. and you look especially in ohio, in florida, in some of the swing
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states, and americans are more optimistic. is this a situation where the expectations have been so lowered that they're looking for any reas to be hopefu to evat the economy is turning around and better days are ahead? >> i certainly agree that expectations are lower. if you had said a few years ago peop would be sisfied with 8% unemployment or vote for a president with 8% unemployment, we might have al laughed. but asdee a times, as economists study the variables and election results, more and more it's the trend you look at. it's the direction that things are going. while in some cases like job the directn is still slow, some of these other indicators i showed you, and we haven't talked aut r and many people have a 401(k)s, the direction of a lot of these indicators is making people feel a little better and getting them to spend a bit more money. car saleare up and so forth. >> up what, 116% since the bottom of the stock marke in march of '90?
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>> that's exact right. jiouookid t nus wistes, ohio, florida, virginia, places like that, you see evidence of what steve's talking about here, which is that the right track/wrong track is going up at just the right time for president obama. >> right. in places like ohio, the economy's been betr than it has been, at least across the coy, ag rich lawry has a smart column, a conservative columnist, piece in "politico" this morning where he talks about the effect that bill clinton's speech seems to have had on this race. that bically he did a better job than anyone else at saying any of the problems that are stl oue, y'tp them all on president obama. and lawry argues that that was an effective argument. it seems like since then the numbers have changed appreciabl and i think they're more linked to the convention than they are to the data ratner's talking about. ere's no doubt everything he's li a perception is oftenthi shaped by these big events and sort of how you feel emotionally, and that's what's getting picked up. >> all right.
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jim vandehei, packer fan, you can't get that win back, but we got the refs back. >> i'm still hoping we get that win back ws reay can't use. a culinary monstrosity. we're just glad mika's not here today. pizza hut with an ice cream-shaped crust filled with cream cheese. we'll tell you where you can get yours when we come back.
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oh,yes. is it me? s,t time, prerecorded mika. "news you can't use." time to marvel at the spread of western fast food across the globe. not doing so well with democracy, but fast food, we've got it. sure, we've got here at home the dairy queen bacon suae,he taco bell taco. remember this one, 7-eleven in singapore, a mashed potato dispenser. for $1, you can have runny mashed potatoes and gravyour out simultaneously. >> yum. ooh, let's go get some. >> nowzaid noeyet, pizza hut middle east is changing the stuffed crt game. >> then fill usith even more fun with pizza hut's new cone crust pizza. filled with luscious cream cheese and honey mustard coated icn, loaded into golden neachn,ig and deliciousness. from the cone crust -- >> i still believe that's an
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"snl" skit. pizza hut has unveiled the cone crust pizza, supreme pizza with small ice cream cone-shaped crust fleditam cheese and honey-basted chicken. it's not the first time the chain is getting innovative with its crust. this is the golden brown cheeseburger pizza at pizza hut, pizza-sized slap of dough with mini chsebuers baked into the crus >> no ye burgers create a crown, you see, encircling a bed of toppings and special sauce. >> are they required to post the calorie count? >> mayor bloomberg hasn't made it there yet. >> a honey-basted sauce? >> one would think so. >> do you get a tripo the er? >> a forer >> and for dessert, wait, there's more. breadsticks called kitkat pops nestled inside a eadstick.
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>> you're ruining a good kit t. >>selies as i said, only available for now in the middle east. but we believe justice will prevail. >> getting a passport if you don't have one ready. next, "time's" joe klein joins the set, plus chuck todd. more "morning joe" in a ment.
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pr tmee.barack obama and i e keeps saying it.
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>> this president cannot tell us that you're better off today than when he took office. >> well, here's where we were in 2008. >> worst financial collapse since the great depression. >> american workers were laid off in numbers not seen in over three decades. >> ersey shore" hom maras magnet and promises to return for a second season. >> here's where we are today. >> the dow soared 244 points. >> the sixth season of "jersey shore" will be the last one. an executive producer announced this season will be their final ys at the shore. >> back obama, he killed bin laden and "jersey shore." >> well, you know, it's kind of hard as you look at the white house on this beautiful thursday morning to argue with that logic. welcome back to "morning joe." hniln'soh ve you here today. along with andrea mitchell. still with us in new york. along with the great willie geist and joining the table, political columnist for "time" magazine and music connoisseur,
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joein. joe, i've got to tl you, am inseec i am in chicago, and one of the two or three people that would be on my bucket list to meet, of course, paul mccartney, number one. but i've got to say, number two's got to be for m paul simon. paul simon going to be with us next hour. me you've got to put him up there among the top two, three, four songwriters in rock history, right? >> not just songwriter, but he's one of the most adventurous musician >> no doubt about it. >> graceland was such a brhr tit inspired musicians all the way down to, you know, vampire weekend now. >> yeah, no doubt about it. of course, he just -- he keeps experimenting, keeps moving forward. it's very exciting. well, listen. we've also got some politics to talk about, j klein. >> do we have to womuch prefer to talk about paul simon, but we'll do that next hour. with you let's talk first about
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the debate that's coming up next wednesday in denver. we're less than a week out from it. mitt romney has to laser focus, one conrvative after another going out there, telling hi steidistracted. have a laser focus on the economy. i want to read you what daniel henninger wrote todayn "the wall street journal." he said stupid in the famous quotation from 1992's clinton versus bush mpai, it's the economy, stupid. whoever thinks a u.s idalcts a something else. all presidential elections are about the economy. yes, there are other issues, but it's also true that a whale has pilot fish. still, most politicians wld rather talk about anything but thecy,ndhe w looking at right there, mitt romney, seems to be exhibit 1 in daniel henninger's argument. how does mitt romney turn it around and laser focus on the
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economy and make the sale next week in time? >> wes goi tbed bee le are feeling a little bit better about thei lives. you know, they've paid off their credit card debts. their 401(k)s are back where they were. you kn, as steve ratner jt showed, their housing prices -- values are goi up. you know wha i wld ds - yo, john mccain very, very successfully made government seem foolish by picking out stupid earmarks. you know, the sgest argument i've seen mitt romney m i , yo know, the government -- the government's regulatory apparatus has bogged down. you know, i would have him go at stupid regulation tricks. you know, there are all tse silly regs that have been paed, u kn,n tls thoused to vote for or vote against, joe. and i think that he has to run
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against the federal government at this point rather than against the economy. >> willie? >> john? sorry. thout joe was gngoay th i ree with that. i mean, he does have to focus on how massive the federal government's gotten, but he also has to explain how that is going to turn things around for t american people. t ard of an argument to make when you say there's $3 trillion sitting on the sidelines. investors are afraid to put that backn the u.s. economy. corporations are more flush with cash than ever before, but they don't know what new regulation orha nwagton's going to pass. now, you could disagree with that if you wanted to, but that's an argument that americans could believe if mitt romney could only give it. >> look, i think that what romney must do is has to talk about the future. you know,ic lry j
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eh talked about, written a piece in politico called "the end of the referendum period." so his argument is people have -- whether they blame the bad economy on bush or wheer they had lower expectations or whatever, they're not making their decision nowased on liti tpast. they're at the point -- there was a republican poll the other day that showed 70% of people are saying that what will make up their mind is the question of are you better off than you were four years ago? 75% of people want to know, what are you going to do for me in the future? how e things going to get better? the obfor romyha an o his policy recommendations either have been completely lost in the cloud of ridiculousness that's enveloped his campaign and the lack of discipline or the policies that are he proposed are policies that can be portrayed aseing policies.h he must talk about the future. he has to persuade people he has a plan going forward. his problem is that most of his plans wreak of the past, and the obama campaign will attack him
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for that. but if he doesn't pivot to the future, he's just going to lose this election because people haveow decided right now tha morer le tthac obs ern the economy, and that's the biggest change in the polls recently is obama taking the lead for the first time in who voters trust going forward. >> and he doesn't have a message that is consistent. because in ohio, he confused his tax message. so if he is going to offer tax ve s amount of money because i'm going to eliminate deductions, but president obama actually didn't inease your taxes, which was a misstatement of his past -- in the last 48 hours, he has completely muddled his taxmessage, and you c dot rliann against an incumbent president who's popular. >> the romney people thought that this was going to be a referendum on barack oma and that they wouldn't have to put forward new ideas. here we have a situation where the president hasn't told us anything about what he's going to do in the second term. heet awit. you know, i had this thought the
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other day with the debates coming up. i can't remember a single thing that bill clinton said or did in the 1996 debates against bob dole. and i think that that is exact what barack obama'soal i or neew we >> and you know, joe, the thing that's so fascinating is that 've ended up, because both candidates have not put forward very specific agendas, we're ending up having an election that's a referendum on bill clinton's time and george w bush's time. and most people tnkacko th conraseing a better period of time as the bush era. so barack obama's winning that debate by proxy because hs associated himself with the policies of bill clinton and with the personf bill clinton. >> i think we've got to start thinking for real about the probability of a clinton monunt on the mall. un?ean, you kn,hoouldav id husay that he could run in ireland, and he could also run in france. >> he could run in france because he was born in louisiana. >> that's a true statement. >> ireland's a better fit for
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him, though, i think. >> although they love him in france. he's a lover. >> we'll move past that. joe, you're just joining us. i want to play a clip for you that we played last hour. mitt romney talking to nbc news yesterday. and now bringing up the massachusetts health care law he championed and helpepass as support for his campaign. >> throughout this campaign as well, we've talked about my record in massachusetts. don't forget, i got everybody in my state insured. 100% of the kids in our state have health insurance. i don't think there's anything that shows more empathy and care abouthe people of this coury th tha kd re. >> joe klein, now coming back and using the health care law that he's avoided for months on end. >> i'm sure that daniel henningeand the folks at "the wall street journal"eally love that. >> empathy and care arthe two words. i was in favor othene heal clawhet c of the heritage foundation in the late 1980s. you know, i was in favor of it
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when it was the republican alternative to hillary care. to employer mandate that hillary had. it's a good plan. 's a very good plan. it could be beer. ahe romney did that, and i talked to him about it and interviewed him, it was very much in his mind that that was going to be his ticket to the national stage. and he's had to run against who he is and what he's done throughout this campaign. >> and joe scarborough, we had ed rdellnyeda aieyd to go up there and talk to romney about this plan. and he was fluent in it, obviouy. he was proud of it. he was wonkish about it, thought it was a good plan tn but hasn't had the same voice until yesterday about it in this presidential campaign. >> you've got to run as who you are. e.u have got toun aou bsel >> you can't run away from who you are. and the american people will accept you for what you are if you're being real. mitt romney was proud of this massachusetts legislation. and you know what?
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he should have not only run on it inheerlen. hod ha run on it in the primaries instead of running away from it. again, joe klein, i said it last hour, i'll say it again. and i disagree with you on daniel henninger and "the wall street journal." ecs, twod say e loved the it's federalism. back in the 1990s, john ingler and tommy thompson and a lot of other republicans, they experimented with health care reform in their own states. and, in fact, we bragged about how all 50 stes would be u d the stm laboratories y e. and mitt romney could have made that argument if he understood conservatism, if he understood federalism. but he just doesn't seem toet it at his core. he can't speak in t same n speak in.,au r >> but know, i think that he tried to make that argument, but it's aalse argument. u know, one of the things that
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republicans say all the time is that we need a national market in health insurance so that ople in n york can buy, you ,mnye. and i think that if this had been done correctly, if we had a national health care superstore, a national exchange, then obamacare, you know, would work. it's really hardo run 50 different health care systems in aoure yav medicare, medicaid and huge corporations like time warner offering health care to their employees. >> i disagree with you, joe, that it's false argument. but, again, that debate can be ca h we're having it now. >> yeah. well, i know. that's what i'm saying. but mitt romney needed to stay on that message because i believe that is the way forward. that doesn't mean that you don't have cooperation between the states. that doesn't mean that you can't op f heah inrancin
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heats . but again, have that debate. engage in that debate. mitt romney just hasn't seemed to be able to stay with it. in fact, joe, he hasn't seemed to be able to stay with any message consistently. and i think that's what's killg him rig now andhy 'sakouo swing voters. >> well, you know, a couple of weeks ago i wrote that it's hard to debate effectively when you're biting your tongue and swallowing your pride. and that's what's been going on. with romney. it reay -- you know, this a guy who has hado editimse very turn. and because of that, you know, he keeps on coming up with the most incredible bloopers, bloopers and gaffes that would have appalled his father. >> joe kno this as well as probly everybody at this table does. ezyngbohe individual mandate is that it is a conservative idea. it was an idea created at the heritage foundation as an
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alternative, as joe said, to hillary care back in the early 1990s. well, it would have been a really gutsy me on romney pa i wd- about the beginning of the primaries was to stand up and say, listen, there's a problem that exists in every state and use this nationally which is there's market failures. there are free riders. to fix that problem to get everyone in the iurance pool, is is the nsertisw indu mandates. and alying that was a conservative doctrine. if he'd have stood up and mad that argument and say listen to all the conservatives who have now decided this idea is freedom, you guys have amnesia because ou whole party 15 years o s saygts was the right solution from the right-wing side of the aisle. but romney did not say that. he tried to thread the needle, and now he's in this ridiculous position of trying to balance -- trying tooue on a
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tightrope. >> newt gingrich was an early champion as were a lot of conservative free-market republicans. let's go to political director and host of "t dailyrundown," chuctodd we'r tngutit romney's mixed message, what he needs to do. yesterday mitt romney talking about the national polls and looked at one of those national polls talking abo gallup saying, you know, i'm pretty close on that. the gallup daily tracking poll comeout, and actually, he's five, six behind. at this point no h t rasmussen poll to cling hold to and all the others including the fox news polls are showing things are slipping badly. and they've continued to slip since the convention. and the $64,000 question is, how does he turn tngs around, and caheo it wsd i de ahe first debate? what do the romney people think they need to do? >> reporter: boy, that was a lot in that leadup. i have to say this. it's an amazing conspiracy theory. if all of the polls except one
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guy, scott smn,ight and everybody else has been polling for a lot longer and actually doing it with a sound methodolog seems to be getting at it another way. let's toss out that conspiracy theory side. look, they are -- the romney folks have believed for three weeks that octob 3rd ishe e ai that's why they spent -- they have spent a lot of time doing debate prep, probably more than they would like to because they've spent less time on the campaign trail. he has spent, you know, more time thanaybe he should have if youoo bac o huc he's not been in battleground states. but there's one thing i want to say about the health care. don't you get the sense, joe, that he's kind of like jack nicholson in "a few good men," and he just wantso scream -- and of course yodo itn the gheld he mandate!gosh dn and i'd do it again and i'd sign
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that law! he wants to support that law. he wants to tout that law because when he's sort of in a box like that question that ron gave him about empathy, he goes right to it. >> by the way, he' proud of it, chuc al t you something else he should be very proud of. the fact -- the picture could have been used against him in the republica primary, but now that he's in the general election, the fact that when he signed that bill, ted kennedy was right next to him. wh is bac a' biggest weakness? in my opinion, other than the economic policies, i thinke has been a miserable failure. this is my belief. a lot of people would disagree with me strongly, but i personally believe his biggest failure, the biggest disconnect is actions of 2009 aor and 2010, he's been a bipartisan failure. mitt romney could say he doesn't kn how to get the deal done. look at me and look what i did
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as a republican in massacsetts. bu's fthch >> well, yes. look, this is this -- what the primaries did to him, what the conservative base did to him, rick santorum said it. remember, th were in the primaries. he said the worst guy to put up there is gng to be the guy -- cae he'll never bebleo ke aen on health care, well, he's right, because romney -- you get the sense in his gut, he doesn't fully -- he doesn't fully disagree with the president, at least on how he might build a universal health care sysm. >> you know i think that the uth of thiishenk at the republicans were against their own idea, the individual mandate, it's a very simple political reason. it's because barack obama was for it. and what you've had over the last four years, and i guess i'm disagreeing with j a bit here, is tubn pty was far more obsessed with preventing obama from succeeding than it
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wasrom -- than it was interested in having the country succeed. there are a lot of things in obamacare that could have been inserted if the republicans played, malpractice and insurance being at the top of the list. >> they were scared by the tea party. they were scared by that whole debate in august of '09. and they never got back to what john heilemann pointedut could be a conservative responsibili argument for the individual mandate. >>o jt, the bipartisanship argument is a powerful argument except for the fact that you can't run on that in a republican primary. and no republicans wanted to hear from mitt romney, i can work with the other party, hang achieved all their success on opposing thother par pa ims thneth election are not like two separate aeons or two separate centuries. they happen in quick succession. we always talk about pivoting the general election. it's much harder now. people have long enough memories. they remember what you said in decemberarbr,
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mah. you can't be running as a different person in june, july, august, september. >> andrea mitchell was talking about how the romney people were scared by people in their own party. i think that's a big problem. that's a big problem. peonallyhey n that he has crazy elements in his party and barack obama doesn't have crazy elements in his party, it's fear. i aays told people -- this is my number one rule because i'd alwaysave politicians coming up to me sing how do i do this or that? d i'd have people say, how do you attack newt gingrich and your own republican party and still have 80%, 85% approval rating among republicans? here's the rule. nobody ever sps you when yore gng m ur i always told them that. if you know what you believe in, step on the gas. go 90 miles an hour politically, blow through every stop sign,
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and nobody's foolish enough to believe you. if mitt romney had said damn right, i was for the individual mandate in massachusetts because as t r to f massachusetts. and guess what? i agree with the heritage foundation. i agree with the conservative -- if he had taken that argument and pushed it aggressively, even though i would disagree with it, if he had pushed it aggressively like he d iat2009 op-ed in "usa today" and stayed with it, guess what? he'd be in pretty good shape right now. but there seems tbe this ongoing fear because he's not going 90 miles an hour. he goes 10 miles an hour and stops. and then he takes a left. en he takes a right. an iis a bolal oblem for him. and i think it's one of the reasons why his message is so skewed right now. >> or damn right, i've been successful in my life. here are the tax returns to prove it get over it. you could make that case, too. joe klein, we didn't even get to your piece in "time," but people oughto read it. it rderew it a lk a the middle
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east." joe klein, thanks so much. chuck todd, stick around with us. we'll talk to rick stengel about that new issue of "time." next, the latest on the nfl's late-night deal to end the lockout. the refs are back, and "sports illustrated," the most connected n the nfetg going to be with us. and a little later, paul simon, the legend, here on set. also from "scandal," our good friend kerry washington joins us. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. [ giggling ]
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welcome back to "morning joe." it's 7:25 here in new york city. joining us now, senior writer for "sports illustrated" and contributor to nbc's "football night in america," thean to know in the nfl, peter king. peter, thanks for coming in on this >> nprm. herefs are back tonight in baltimore. what did it come down to in the end? >> i think a couple of things. first of all, the nfl could not
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send replament officials to green bay sunday. i think everybody in the league ew that. i mean, this had to get done this week. and i think at the end of e day, the oiaet t retain a pension system through 2016 that 89% of corporate america doesn't have anymore. okay? and they're part-time employees. this pension was important to thofficials. they get to retain it for the next five seasons. and the ls to hire a taxi squad of officials that over the next few years they can replace underperforming officials. >> peter, peel back the curtain a little bit because you talked to all the principals involved here. for the first couple of weeks, did roger goodell say to himself, we're going t weather vewobout this? >> yes. >> and did it come down to monday night? >> i think a lot of this was monday night. remember the way he thinks. he's thinking two, three, four years down the road, his main go in this was to make se fis to replace se
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underperforming officials down the road so that if an official either goes, you know, has a bad year or whatever, formerly he wouldn't be benched. now they're going to be able to do that. and the officials get a lot more money. but did he undestate e onseoue, impact of this? >> the response would not have been an outrage had not that game happened monday night. the reason that it took 48 games for it to happen, but in the 48th game of the season, the wrong team won. and roger goode lked at he person in the league, we can't have that. >> chuck todd, you cover the white house. the president of the united states came out on this the other day, as did mitt romney. >> repter: yes, they did. and don't forget, it's green bay, wisconsin, a battleground state. per ki, major league baseba did ovtu a result, george brett, the infamous pine tar incident, they overturned a result, that was a home run in t top of the
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ninth, so they forced the ending -- they ended up having to play the extra half inning. >> right. >> was there any thought that the nfl- w t a emplation by -- you know, i know what their statement said -- of overturning that result because it was the last play. they could have done it in a way, and it probably would have been fairly accepted around the league. >> well, chuck, i mean,'ve asked that question to couple er nothing in the bylaws a that says that we can do that. so there's no rule set up to be able to do that. now, the logical person might say, well, you should just do it. you should just make a rule like that. s omm in the league ha tre among the owners. and you didn't even hear players calling for this to be overturned. so i don't think it was ever a serious consideration, as common sense as it may be. >> the fact is, they were makg decisions that were the wrong decisions allon an this one was
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determinative, but there were plenty of bad calls in others of those 48 games. ey can make a rule. if they can make a bad decision. >> you know, they could. >> why not throw out the playbook they alrey have? >> they could, andrea, but i thinthhis nfl is very often capable of redoing things inmidstream. they show that when they reinterpret rules. but this would have been such in nd overturn the ruling of the officials on the field. then i think they would have figured, where would it stop? >> real quick before i let you go, long-term impact on the nfl brand of this? because let's be honest. people might have been angry. they were still watching the games, still buying the jerss, stilgotoatmes. does this really hurt the league at all? >> i think it really hurts the league and green bay, wisconsin. in green bay, which is where the bedrock fan is and where green
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bay has fans all over the country, you know, i got tweets, i got se direct messages over e last f da, i d wit this season. i'm finished. that's probably emotions speaking. but i think the nfl owe green bay a big one. and i don't know how they're going to make it up to them. >> especially if they miss the wild card spot. >> by one ga. it will be an outrage. it wil a ouage. >>erki gff this morning. >> thank you. >> we appreciate it. >> chuck todd, thank you swp. see you ahead at 9:00 on "the daily rundown." coming up, first look at the issue of "time" with managing editor rick stengel. keep it here on "morning joe." thpion rewdsd gives you a 50% annual bonus. and everyone likes 50% more
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so, i'm working cin keve and the guy hands me a locknut wrench. no way! i'm like, what is this, a drainpipe slipknot? wherever your business takes you, nobody keeps you on the road like progressive commercial auto. [ shouting in japanese ] we work wherever you work. now, that's progressive. call or click today. ♪ joining us now, "time" magazine managing editor rick stengel here to reveal the latest issue of "time." good moing. what do you got? >> good morning, willie. we he the great jea o >> hold on. i hate to stop this, willie, but i just want to warn our younger viewers, the cover story, willie, as you know, is written
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by jon meacham. jon meacham, of course, his first "time" cover was "there is no god." his second-time cover was "america is iidin the third "there is no santa claus." we've got a big question mark. what do you think what time-honored truth do you think jon meacham is going to savage today? >> i think he's coming back to one ofis old favorites, "heaven is f suckers." seriously! meacham, why did he do this to us? >> you and i have still explained to our sweet little daughters why mr. meacham tells them there is no such thing as heaven. it's a terrible thing. >> you actually are teasing the ca ict -- in fact, . jon, reverend meacham who is far more devout than either of you guys combined. >> it's the right, reverend, jon meacham, thank you. >> thank you. i stand corrected. thank you, joe. so it's atory by jon aut d an identity, about
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mormanism in america. and basically, he makes the case that mormanism is, in fact, the quintessential american religion. mormanism is all about america being the promised land. and jon finds it a little riouthat gernone n'lkbo that more because in a sense, mormanism is about american exceptionalism. and the fact that governor romney doesn't incorporate that in his whole argument is a curious thing. and the other thinghat he says about mormanism is thatt's gif t and tribulation and escaping prejudice and being under the gun. and, in fact, that also i animating mitt's campaign because he'sind of trying to sail steady in the face of all of this turbulen. tu cusl.aerfect -- it'sot there's a very clear reason why he doesn't talk about it. and it reflects the innate caution of their campaign. they've been worried all along about base voters, evangelical
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voters and not turning out for him. theye been concerned about that from day one. yocoulrizet ulite that caution, but that's the reason why he doesn't talk about it more. >> but the flip side is also interesting which is nobody else is really talking about it very much. and when you look at the polls, i believe even the evangelicals are more for romney than people mit have expected, given the circumstances. >> at least they sayhe d ,f i were romney, why i wouldn't talk about something controversial if nobody else is talking about it. >> that's a very good point. and the point that they make, which i actually think is correct, is thateople appreciate devoutness no matter whathe devouess is in favor of. o genuinely devout, and yet he doesn't really talk about it. i do think because mormanism is so particularly the kind of the american religion, it actually gives you a diving board to jump off and talk about thisn a way that celebrates american excenali. i'surpseatdot . t ea -- it is, rick, so curious that he doesn't do
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that, and his campaign staff, his top advisers haven't figured this out from the very beginning. when i ran four times, i always looked atormans at mylly. evli ld at mormans as their ally. you would look at conservative christians, orthodox jews, and mormans, i don't get it. you could even go back and dig into the numbers. i remember seeing this last super tuesday in 2008, you looked at evael vsn the republican primary on super tuesday. you had a baptist preacher by the name of mike huckabee that got one-third of the evangelical vote. john mccain, the eventual nominee, got one-third of the evangelical vote. mitt romney got the other one-third of the evangelical vote. and yet ey seem eunni d jon get it. i think it's a positive. >> i agree. and in fact, one of the things we've seen in the last few cycles is that people turn their liabilities into assets, and other people'siabilities -- other people's assets into liabilities. and the fact that they're not
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using this seems peculiar. >> rick, there's a pgr thccni the piece i'm not sure i've seen. we've seen old photographs of him and ann. this is during his time as a missionary. >> yes, this is when he was in france. it's circa 1968. it was when hwas still courtinghe then-ann davies, icsouout france of him, you know, saying "i love ann." and it's a lovely sentimental picture. it's been rarely, rarely publisd before. actually, we found it in the "time" le photo a'ivarchives. >> circa 1968, i guess. what else about the issue this week? we just had joe klein talking a little about his piece in the middle east. at else pops out at you? >> we have the toughest job in america about the president of american airlines. we have a great piecey b ga who's been on here before about the rise of the salafis in
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the middle east. they're the tea party of muslim democracy, and that's a fantastic insightful story as well. >> bobby asked if it wluin rof arab spring. rick stengel, thanks for being here. "the morman identity" written by jon meacham. still ahead, the much anticipated inside account of the u. suggle for iraq from rrndmil ontimes" military al with our own chief pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski. keep it "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. that was me still taking insulin
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quote, unavoidable global bacon shortage. >> a global bacon shortage! wee algointo! much later than we thought thanks to the reduced salt and nitrates in our diet. well, i, for one, am going to be ready for the coming apkalypse. i am presently building an undergroundhelterck it with all the salted hog meat i can find, bacon, pancetta, ham , he looks salty >> howre you and your family preparing for the aporkalypse? still ahead on "morning joe," paul simon will join us. we'll ask about his legendary album "graceland" amo many her this and importantly his work to bring hlth ce t the kihod t most. when we come back here from the
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hit political thriller series "scandal," kerry washington going to be with us. we'll be right back on "morning joe." [alaespee onlthan a traditiona?
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my name is olivia pope, and i want to be clear i'm not here inny official capacity. i'm only here to warn you because you shou knowhat coul ha. itldom hd for you to find employment. your face would be everywhere. people would associate you with a sex scandal, all kinds of information about you would easily become available to the press. for example, you've had 22 sexual partners that we know of. also there's that ugly bout of ntils,wo y at ther ly hospital. i bet that's private. she runs a day care now, right? >> he told me he loved me. he gave me the stock. >> see, it's those kind of lies that could hurt you if you said them to other people, people not as nice as me. i'll give you some free advice. hand in your resignation. >>t s a scene from abc's drama "scandal." joining us now, the star of that show, kerry washington who i assure you is not as evil in person as she is on that program. >> thank y for vouching for me, willie. >> tell mebout olivia pope. >> my charter the show ol ,fixer.
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she's a crisis manager. and she's based in washington, but she deals with all kinds of crises. because the thing about d.c., as you guys now, it's the center of power in a lot of different industries. you never know who's going to walk throughur door whether it's a ngman, na a emurus a powerful ceo, a leader of of a . last year we had a couple of those characters. >> you have the -- i don't know what we want to call it. character trait of having had an affair with the president of the unitedtates. >> that is detailnhe >>ortant correction. >> pretend detail on the show. and he's white and it's a republican president. all of the important diinctions from reality. >> maybe we should take that from theop do over. >> maybe you should ask the questions. >> your character oilivia pope
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has an affair with the ypuicanrent wh love about the show, no one is what they believe them to be everybody has secrets and something to hide, which is sort of the nature of the scandal. this season inurecond sn webeino oy learn more about those secrets but figure out how those secrets impact each other because the politics of the office is changing a lot, our relationship to the white house is changing based on what we know and based on stuff that's hpened in the past >> this show is totly your wheel house. you were immersed in politics. you're an activist. you campaigned for president obama. you watch the show as we hear from you when we see you out. what is it about politics you like so ch? >> to be honest with you, th irespsibity. when i participate in politics,
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it's never as a celebrity. it's always as an american. i feel like so many people put their lives on the line. susan b. anthony died without ever being able to vote. so manyomen snt l t maur hav a political voe and same thing in the civil rights movement. so many people fought s i could express my views and vote and have a say. i never want to take that for granted. not as a celebrity but as an american. >> we just showed the brief clip of youpegth convention. >> i was really nervous. i get paid to be other people for a living. to speak as other people. as the convention i was speaking as myself in a room that big and the stakes are so high in this election. i ft like ias a trendous ho a a big responsibility. i kind of prefer being other people. >> that's an incredible room. energy in there. you get off one line and you feel the energy come back to you
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and it kind of builds. >> rlly exciting. >> i think we have a clipfou ki le listen. >> today there are people out there trying to take away rights that our mothers, our grandmothers and our great grandmothers fought for. rights that we fought fo ourigote our right to choose. our right to affordable, quality education. equal pay. access to health care. and we, the people, cannot l th en ow about that, mike barnicle. sign her up. >> when you watched yourself, you said yis. what did you mean? >> i don't like watching myself. it's very awkward. when you're in the moment, you get caught upnhe moment and so it's always awkward to watch myself do anything. who wants to watch themselves do
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anything. i don't. >> i can tell you from the ground in charlotte people were impressed. they sed making carrie washington signs. >> i think what's important is that you have americspeakg t vtegnd engaging on both sides of the aisle. that's how a democracy works. people participate. participate based on my views and what's important to me. i think everybody should participate. everybody. at's why i think any time we dingage votersrak i more difficult for people to participate, to vote, to show up and have their political voice, that's dangerous. we only work as a nation when we allow eligible voters to vote. >> president obama is lucky to have you working forim this
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time ar. thow"scandal." her character, olivia hope, has an affair with the president of the united states on the show. second season getting ready. always good to see you. >> thursday nigs on anoth neork. >> great to see you. >> thanks. >> "morning joe" is coming right back. e ref our medicare and social security. man 1: i want facts. straight talk. tell me your plan...
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>> everyone is saying these replacement refs are an absolute disaster. i've been looking at footage o the act i an in the last three weeks. i have to agree. they have not done a great job. judge for yourself. >> okay. clap if you think it was holding. all right. not bad. now clap if you don't think it l right. somebody please tell me what holding is. >> pass interference on the defense number 22. why don't they just let the man catch the ball?
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am i gh >> okay. i do not yet have a ruling on the eld do have this. all right. what do you think? >>ood morning. it's 8:00 a.m. on t eas t. an the west coast as you take a live look at new york city. back with us on set in new york, we've got steve ratner, andrea mitchell. t'ar qlyit the talout. refs. we have some breaking news and i got to tell you, little kates excited. 9 years old. she plays in the soccer league. and the parents have had to ref over the past couple weeks because thoseuys have ge to l. t cf now. >> that's great news. >> it happened late last night.
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the nfl and referees union announced they have reached a tentative agreement that will end the lockout and bring the original, the regar offiinew starting tonight. the deal good through the 2019 season features increase in average salary for officials. they'll go up to 205,000 a year by 2019. all kinds of things inside this deal. bottom line, joe, the nfl realed icoulhi anree after that debacle on monday night. the packers had a precious win taken away from them which could be the difference of making the playoffs and winning the super bowl. roger goodell was humbled when he saw the outc over th. itasea national newscasts and on the front page of newspapers. fans were furious about it. they reached an 11th hour deal and refs are back on the deal tonight. >> nfl got pounded by all sides. i didn't hear a single talk radio guy, sports radio guy, supporti the nfl.
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i didn't hearnydy es an, this was a black eye for the nfl. they had to bend and they did. that's great news. you know who else is on the field? john heilman is back. i think he broke the world cord tt emmy awards in an altered state. this was like doc ellis picking a no-hitter on acid. congratulations, john heilman. welcome back. >> doc eis has nothing on me. he was only on ls >> you mixed it up. willie, let's go to the race for the president. obviously a lot going on. the polls not looking good. tt romney saying he's not paying attention to the polls. a lot o supporters saying you don't pay attention to t polls. i heard walter mondale say that before the election. what's happening in the race?
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>> laser focus on the swing states. it's a state president obama won in 2008 be an soi an polling average from real clear politics shows him right now at this moment up about 4.5 points. yesterday both candidates holding rallies in ohio crisscrossing the state sometimes almost running into each other they were so close campgning there. mitt romney tried to brush back ggonatpa i faltering there after that "the new york times"/cbs poll showing him down ten points in ohio. >> i'm very pleased with some polls. less so with other polls. frankly at this early stage, polls go up and polls go down. i don't expect to get 100 o kn iotngo g 100%. i hope to get 50 plus percent and make sure i become the next president. >> talking about those polls yesterday, mitt romney's cited gallup a a couple national llthat suggest the .
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>> why would he cite the gallup poll. i would if i was a republican candidate because the gallup poll usually is more conservative. what's the current gallup poll look like? >> there's the daily tracking poll showing president obama up six points in the race. maybhe just wd focus on rassmussen. >> you hear a lot of people -- not people inside the romney campaign because they know they're in trouble. they're focused on it. that's aood sign. you hear aotfpl on talk radio and watch certain news channels and they are screeching about how the polls are rigged. romney's people know they are in big trouble. even fox news polls show romney losing in a lot of swing states. they understand they're in trouble. do they believe they' got a >> they do and they do. they know they're in trouble. they have tried a little bit to
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play the polls in the last couple days. th argue within the mgin of error in ohio. you can be far behind in it the margin of error. gnicantly down in ohio. they're significantly down in the swing states. they know that they -- they think that governor romney ad yesterday they were happy with and they think it was very effective ad. they think they are sharpening his economic message. th know they need tdo that theyhink it's possible to win t theczes ao that it will take a couple really big moments in that first debate where romney will have to change the dynamic in a substantial way. it happened in 2004 for john kerry. it could happen again. time is running out and they know th. >> jim, there areot th c l at in this romney campaign and point to
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them and say how could they have been that dumb and made this mistake or that mistake? looking more generally, taking a bird's-eye vie i think the thing that surprised mso much is how bad the economy is in hoeside got everything he wanted for the first two years. how he's got no excuses for a bad economy now running for re-election if you'ren a political campaign. and yet the romney campaign seems to change messages every day. a lot lik the mccn ai fed tactics than the overall strategy karl rove had a strategy in 2000 before he started and 2004 before he started and he stuck with it t entire campaign. i don't see that focus here with roey's topvi. >> there hasn't been that focus. i think that's really blind-sided the campaign, they are obviously worried about the polls you just discussed. what really worries them is the right track number coming out of
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the nvention. number of people thateel like the untry iseaden better direction. that number really shot up after the democratic convention and they are picking that up in swing states and in a lot of senate races. that suggests a mood shift in the electorate they don't understand. they think it has somethi to do with the convention. meingo ite economy in the swing states that the economy is not good but signs on the housing front it may get better. and now they don't really have a message. they never had a positive message. a specif message. here's five specific things i will do differently if i elecpresiden if i t things, they'll have an appreciable effect on your life. they never did that. that's what they are grappling with now. it seems like each day groping foit because there's still not clarity of message if you listen to events or if you watch the coverage or read his eech. ey a sti wngnat >> andrea, early voting is something i don't think enough people talk about.
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last election, 2008, early voting started in many states and that's why time i of the essence for mitt romney. >> narrati has been thae somt next week at the debate. early voting has already started in so many places and is a rolling number. that's why the debate as important as it is, is not possly determinative. he's g to chang this qukly. it wlearnond with that ad that straight to camera advertisement that they realize how devastating that 47% videotape was because what he's nowrying to communicate is this compassion. he's really changed his message in the lt 48 hours's that was critical. >> what's one thing about early voting? there's early voting going on. a number number of undecided voters in the country. the undecided voters if they
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waited this long and hardcore ded th'lit ng y point is that if he were to make a mistake, if either candidate makes a big mistake next week in the debate, those decided voters could change. there are still people gen the possibility of what we saw in 84 with ronald agannd 1980 with ronald reagan that it was a mood change. >> let's also remember john kerry in 2004, he moved the needle but he didn't move the needle nearly far enough and the fact is that 18 of the last 1 idalctio they have been leading at this point won the popular vote with the exception of course thomas dewey. >> remember how close kerry came. if he won a small number in ohio -- >> i understand that. >> he would have been president. >> also if he had not gone wind surfing in nantuct. thouav helped. >> willie, the thing is that we talk about the 47% video. i'm hearing more people in the
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romney campaign as every day es by, they understand more and more that they made a huge mistake with ttibya p coen i't g say that it was sort of that september 15th moment. the economy is sound. but john mccain last time. i can't tell you how many pollsters tell me tha was -- it made him look unpresidential. adh their editorial today, the libya debacle. the more we find out about benghazi the more it looks like a gross security failure. mething the romney campaign told me, this is the biggest mistake we made on liby if you give media a chance to talk about politics or policy, they'll talk politic everything time. all anybody talked about was politics of it but policy looks mo and more like aross u snyarnings coming
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in. so many warnings that were ignored. now the administration, the lead of the "the new york times" saying that it may have been an al qaeda hit. "times" said they are offering no evidence on th. mi romney again that's -- it's a picblunder. and they've made too many of them. >> we had secretary of state hillary clinton saying we believe there's an al qaeda link to the attack on the consulate in libya. >> within minutes we were told by a state department official that she did not mean to say that. at wasn't when she w saying she st a cre orant she was not linking it to benghazi. it's not established and proved. in fairness to them, "the new york times" writer is the only person there among all of the reporters -- the transcript does show sadehacoti >> she's not the first to suggest that. >> no. the fact is whatever confusion there is over whether it was or wasn't terrorism and how the
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administration handled it has been diffused by romney having gone ahead with that press coerence and said all those stupid thin,e losig >> there's a perfect example. this conversation right here makes my point and makes the point of the romney staffers who were concerned that there is still confusion. there is still chaos in the white house over exactly what happened in benning aghazi and u.s. ambassador was killed and he stepped in front of that sty when i suspect the more we look at this situation, the worse it's gng to look for the president. >> i think they lood at it in the short-term as a political dnhibo long-term impact of it. another interesting thing, joe, is the raising of the massachusetts health care by mitt romney, by his campaign bringing this back up. he's had sustained attacks over what he's called obama care and the president's health ce law. in an iview wh ws romney highlighted his own massachusetts health care reform
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as proof that he doesn fact care about 100% of americans. >> throughout this campan as well we've talked about my record in massachusetts. don'tforget i got evebody iny state oe i our state have health insurance. there isn't anything that shows more care about the people of this country than that kind of record. >> shining a light on his record on health care in massachusetts. remarkable. >> and offering an endorsement obama care in e process. governor romney is one of the great stories over the last two years that he's been running. at bottom, at heart, he's proud of the law. he tried toind a way in the primaries to be for his own law and not give that up and say i'm oud wt wid actt he kw he couldn't be -- he had to figure out a way to be against obama care. he found himself in a ridiculous position of saying i love my own law but it's not good law for the rest of the country even
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though i said that in an op-ed two years ago. i claimed that to get through 'simpoible straddle and . one that maybe he had to do in order to get through the primary electorate now in this ridiculous position of having to -- he should be proud of the law. a law he is proud of. he hasn't been able to embre because ofhepled primary dynamics. this is where he should have been all along. it's hard to see it giving him political advantage it might have under other circumstans. >> it shows political weaknesses on mitt romney's part. the first is what conservatives haeeplngut pecially over the past month mainly off camera. he just doesn't get conservatism. he can't talk like a reagan or thatcher. he doesn't uerstand -- goo exe ea care reform.
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john engler when governor, we said do what you want to do in michigan and do what you want to do in florida and california, we'lhave 50 legislative laratories and that's what we bestdeas survive. and then if the federal government wants to implement some of those ideas, that's fine. not by national mandates but we'll figuret out. it called federalism. mitt romney never was able to explain that in a way that paul nsticoha lotfer explained it in two or three seconds. i did that in massachusetts. let me tell you something, what works in massachusetts doesn't work in michigan, doesn't work in mississippi, dsn't work in minnesota. we've got 50 different states and let's have experimentatn. s hecompetition. let's have legislative lavatories and see what suits each week's residents the best. he missed that. >> when we come back, the long aited book that offers an inde account of the u.s.
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ruggle for iraq from bush to oba. wel brthw s"efily correspondent michael gordon. also joining the conversation, nbc news chief pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski. and in just a few minutes, the great singer/songwriter paul av atu you. if you love summer and warmth and heat, turn away. this is the first snow picture of the season coming out of colorado. this comes to you from steamboat springs, lorado. a dusting of snow at the higher elevions. it the beginning. if you love to see, you're only aboua month . as aaistoday, already had some around new york city. another batch about to head back in. should be a dry afternoon. we had beneficial rains last night in oklahoma and there's mo coming. look at the heavy rain up by amarlo. hardest hit drought areas are getting rain as we go throuout the beginning of ll. fasr today. i don't expect a lot of airport trouble with rain moving through d.c. and new york and philadelphia today. it's hit and miss.
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i don't think you'll see minor delays at worst. it's a beautiful day from chicago to detroit to minneapolis. may see a stray storm or two around denver. we'rstill warm in tes. i got good news for everyone. the rain to the north and west is going to head your way as we go through friday and then into saturday it may rain a little bit to start your weekend. i know you could use it. d.c. today should be warm. 83 and humid. probably one of the warmest days we'll see f a while. y w can. you're watching "morning joe." we're brewed by starbucks. [ male announcer ] with a driving range of more than 550 miles you'll inevitably find yourself on a desolate highway in your jeep grand cherokee. and when you do, you'll be grateful for the adaptive cruise control that automatically djusts your speed
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welcome back to "morning joe." a live shot of washington, d.c. on a beautiful thursday morning. let's bring in chief medical correspondent for "the new york -ar of the new book, "the e endgame." also joining the conversation is nbc news chief correspondent jim miklzewski. looks like a fantastic book. thank youor b with us. i guess the one defining element of the iraq war from 2003 forward is the fact that it's made fools of everybody from george w. bush's administration on wmds and so manyerhing to democrats attacking general petraeus and the surge as something that was doomed to
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fail. what were your take aways when you finished the book? >> what i tried to do is cover the entire period from 2003 to f half of 2012 and we did something a lot of authors don't do. we actually talked to the iraqis, the people in whose country the conflict was being waged from ime minister maliki on down. deiteheub a high cost in terms of lives and treasure, there really was an opportunity toward the end of the conflict to construct a better relationship with iraq than we have today, one that would have been a better partnership for th united states and it didn't happen because of reaso in iraq a iton'ap bause of differences within the obama administration. >> in the book you write about the obama's administration handling of the withdrawal from iraq. the administrion had a fresh
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chance to reengage with iraq leers d e li. obama did not act decisively on that chance choosing ahead to take hands off approach on iraq. this decision was characteristic of those obama made on ir. saw ersolnt ere not as an opportunity but rather as a leftover minefield, a path out of which had to be charted as quickly as possible. explain that to us. >> at the end of the bush administration, the beginng of th obama adnistti vice d substantially in iraq. the question was were we going to keep a small number of troops in iraq after 2011? how would that be negotiated? there was a significant difference, i think, in perspeive between t pta eir mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, civilians, saw iraq as an opportunity. they wanted to keep a reasonably
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sized force around 16,000. at the white house, the national security adviser sawt more sohe white house was much d more risk adverse. this dynamic played out throughout the entire negotiations and as a consequence i don't really think the administration made substantial effort to negotiate a connureere i mi have. difficult to arrange under any circumstance but they started late. had visions in ranks and iraqis sensed the americans vae. mszi is in washington with a question. >> congratulations on the book. going back to the withdrawal and this idea that the americans would keep some kind of residual advisory force there in aq yo know, throughout 20
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wereolhe pentagon and the white house were willing to do that but iraqis have to ask. but i've got it from good sources myself that on his last trip to badad, secretary gates talked with prime minister maki w lalow o his knees and pleaded to gates to leave some residual american force there is in iraq. reading what you found out, it sounds as if the white house was intent on doingt onliy on its own terms and on terms that maliki could absolutely not accept. do you believe the white house, president obama, wasver serious abt leaving that residual force there in iraq? >> firstf all, it is true as you point out that prime mier miki iat a ertimes, he did it to me when i interviewed him a year ago, that he wanted some residual forces at least he said he wanted them.
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and his idea was to do it as an executive agreement between maybe the iraqi mis o nsdentagon and not as something they submitted to their parliament which would be far more controversial. i think that is where the agreement faltered. i don't think obama was being cynical. i think w basically asking for an agreement on his terms. >> right. michael, you know, candidate obama took a real beating in the 2008ampaign for his early opposition to the iraq war which he cald tumar retrospect proved to be accurate. do you get a sense that there was any attempt by the white house or the president to seek vindication for the president's early position on the war? juntsou reclhey made substantial president obama campaigned on
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getting all of the combat brigades out within 16 months. what they did was somewhat different than that. they adjusted that significantly. i do think witn the white house there was additional concern about the politica csn th united states of keeping significant number of forces. while in the pentagon they wanted to keep some troops partly because nobody controls iraqi airspace now and that's why iran has been ableohip riroug thi vacant poo airspace, while the pentagon saw it in strategic terms and the white house was a bit suspicious of the military thinking the military always wanted to keep rces in these placesnd obviously they were intent doing what theyeone during the campaign, campaigning on the statement that they ended the war in iraq. so keeping a substantial force in iraq was a bigger pill to swallow for the white house than
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it was for the pentagon. >> to that point, michael, they've said that's one of the fon cyor we end the war in iraq yet at the same time there's so much iranian influence and so much suspicion of the shiite connection to iranians and the fact that iran used thr rspace. do you think that this is safe space formo kee bin out iraq or is iraq still a work in progress, very much a work in progress? >> well, what i tried to do in the book with general trainor was asses the administration in terms of what they themselves tried tdo in iraq. they tried to much more than just take the tops ou theyried t construct basically a coalition government, a partnership government in which power would be shared because there's a lot of concern that maliki is acting in a authoritarian y. th notian agreement to keep small force in iraq of 3,000 to 5,000.
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they did plan to have a substantial number of american police trainers. civilian presence to keep erican influence in that part of the world. none of thosehings thathey d o ly happeneto the ex-accident that the administration hoped. it's a complicated picture. >> this is another case where some of the criticism of the president's foreign policy is that he doesot develop relationships wi these foreign leaders d it's clear inhis caseha hd t. also residual suspicion of general petraeus. i was there when general petraeus was still running iraq and barack obama was a candidate when he first went to iraq. and that relationship did not get off to a good footing. >> you owheinat gave vice president biden the lead for iraq policy. when it came to the big decisions, president obama had to get engaged. i found it string that during this whole negotiation over keeping troops in iraq,e talked by the secure
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deoconferences that they do. he talked to prime minister maliki twice. president obama, for him, iraq was a mh more importa priority rightly or wrongly and he was engaged on a weekly basis. i do think that had an eect on iri tihe was an extraordinary request that president obama made to the president of iraq to resign his position to make way for another person. it's hard to make that kind of request when you don't have an ongoing relationship with your aq counterparts. >> the book is "endgame." thank you for being here. jim miklaszewski, thank you as well. when we come back, pl simon u'ch"morng joe" brewed by starbucks.
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even better than we did before ♪ yeah prep yourself america we're back for more ♪ ♪ our look is slacker chic and our sound is hardcore ♪ ♪ and we're here to drop a rhyme about free-credit-score ♪ ♪ i'm singing free-credit-score- dot-com...dot-com ♪ narrator: offer applies with enrollment in freecreditscore.com
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hi dad. many years from now, when the subaru is theirs... hey. you missed a spot. ...i'll look back on this day and laugh. love
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welcome back to "morning joe." we talk about music all the
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time. i have a very small buct list. i'm a simple man. i don'tarutrent o prmier for me it's always been mccartney. paul simon. >> the pauls. >> and bob dylan. only people i care to meet in the world. >> dylan and mccartney are i wake up in 3:00 in the morning. i'm in chicago. i find out that mr. bucket list is on my set. very excited to have with us rock 'n' roll ll oer a member of 12-time grammy award winner marking the anniversary ofhe organization they founded to provide health care to kids in needs. the children's health care fund. gentlemen, it's areat hor to have b here. not only, paul, because of the
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remarkable music that you've provided us for so long but also 25 years of this organization taking care of children in need. talk about what's happened over the past 25 years and what you hope to accomplisover theex . >> well, first of all, thanks for your kind words, joe. sorry that you're -- what are you doing in chicago? >> i'm cursed. i'm cursed. i'm just stupid. i'm always in the wrong place at the wrong time. >> he thought this weekend was l lallapalooza. >> i'm in the wrong place at the wrong time. i'm dr. john here. talk about your organization and what's happene over the past 25 years. >> it started with explosion of homeless people in -- not a literal explosion but homeless people in new york city in the
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late '8 the doctor and i met because i was trying to get some money from usa for africa, the michael jackson video that i was in to give it to a homeless shelter on the westid o manhattan. and his interest is children's health care, pediatrics and we went around the city and saw the single room occupancy hels and in w homelessness and w i affected children. it was honestly like the third world. it was just mortifying. and so we came up with this idea to have a mobile medical clinic that would go the vus sites and provide health care with a doctor and a nurse on board and a computer records and
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we were associated with a hospital in new york and that's how we began. we startedn manhattan and tn wt to a few other boroughs and now we have 50 units all around the united states in urban areas and in rural areas. erbe-cee staedhell is our sty. there's been 3 million doctor/patient visits over the 25 years. >> you guys have been working this issue for a long time. we talk about presidenti campaigns and how a lot of big issues don get talked about. this is one of them. how frustratis y t h camign ay out in 2012 and have this issue that means so much to you never mentioned? not ever really discussed in any substantiaway by either party or either candidate. >> that's an important question. we have been speaking to the campaigns and trying to gh
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heampaigns to say something in terms of their plans for what they'll do not just access to health care for all children, especially poor children, but access to all of the safety netrograms from hunger support and early education and so forth. and in fairne, thstew yes have shown significant grth in some of the strength of these programs and expansion of programs for the poor under president obama. that said, we would like to see more articulation of this as a major issue for the u.s. the thing about children and port is it' v difrent tua w adults. with adults people are enduring situations that they should not have to. for children, not only are they enduring conditions that are horrendously adverse but there are consequees. if kids are not getti health care they need and not gting nutrion d so fhe early brain development years or while they're in school, then we see an unfolding disaster that will affect not only our present but our future.
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>> doctor, could i interject? you've been doing thi for 25 ars. ee5eagoou w hear studies saying if you don't get to kids before they're five, they're going to be problems for the rest of their lives. it seems the more we learn, the more we begin to understand that that age gets bumped back to don't make the investment to help these children, these babies, these toddlers develop in the first two to three years of life, they're going to be deficiencies in lot of cases for the rest of their lis. critical to get in as early as ssib, rit? >>quon i a niece that teaches a first grade class in new york and she was telling me a week about about children who fall asleep, 6 year olds fall asleep with heads on their desk. children who he been labeled as learning disabled when they don't have visual problems. the ki falling asurn thest not identified
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or treated. these kids are destined in many cases to be failures or not reach eir potential and that is a -- that's really a disaster for the country. this is where that word you used, investment, is key here. ulay tuthiren as a treasure of america. they are. but also a critical investment. just as important as anything else we'll do economically. it's one of the reasons that we're hoping that this eleion season will see more focus on children as investments in america's future. vently on, you're a engaging in a false economy because you're going to be paying out a lot more in the out years whether it's medicaid or other government services. so when we were about to s5th anniversary of your organization. somebody said it's the 25th anniversary of graceland. it tells me how -- i thoug
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thatame out like a yr t aghis how old i am. 26 years ago and it still is having a significant impact. your albumast year so beautiful or so what? critically acclaimed. thar a lot of pehat have their hits and then play those hits for the rest of their lives and don't keep growing. how do you keep getting up and producing great music? day after day or ung sports analy inninger inn r ng gng fhe next inning? >> nice of you to say. well, for one thing, i'm not thinking about hits anymore. actually, i wasn't thinking about hits when i was making graceland. i certainly didn't think i know a great idea. i'll go tothic and record and the whole world will fall in love with it.
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that's what happened. i'm just trying to kee myself interested in my rk at's really what goes on. the fact that other people are interested is gratifying but i would be doing it, always was doing it for myself and i still am. >>oe bhtaceland. wealk about politics and music and there's very few records that have intertwined politics and music the way graceland did. you violated the buy coycott toe rs artist to be invited to e perform. talk about what that record means to you. it really was something that kind of -- i n't want to say changed the world but opened people's ears to music to a
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different culture and talk aut atndt ttnsn context of your whole career what kind of impact that had on you. >> well it was the great teaching experience of my career because i began to learn about rhhm. i was alwayswn rhythm. playing with african musicians and with west african musicians, that was great. inetrospect was most gratifying is i always hhi idea that cultures were not as separated as we perhaps imagined. that comes from early rock 'n' roll listeng to it. when you te country music and african-american experiencend you combine it, you're taking different cultures because you are putting them together and that was rock 'n' roll.
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the graceland experience was very similar. there we places that concted ic m and south african music and we found those bridges and we built a hybrid that worked as an example and had political implications as well th i couldn't foresee at the time. they turned out to be a good teaching device as well. quite an extraordinary thing in my life to have don graceland. >> absolutely extraordinary for all of us. i remember speaking of ely rock 'n' roll d rolling stone interviewing asking you for the greatest line in rock history in the early '80s, yr answer she's my baby andon't mean
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mayb >>tisngnow, i feel like i may have had issues with the reporter or the question. >> that continues. paul simon, thank you so much. >> thank you for having us. >> it's great to he you here. door, anu uc . ha e. >> we thank you for what you've done during the past quarter of century. >> the concert is one week from today. >> heilemann and i will be there throwing things on stage hoping to get a cser view. congpnein before the bell with brian sullivan. we'll be right back on "morning joe." my kids would love this xbox 360.
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breaking news this morning. let's go to cnbc's brian sullivan. >> mixed economic data cing out about 15 minutes ago. it'sdfaing. fioff, the weekly unemployment claim numbers did come in better than expected. about 26,000 fewer than the consensus forecast. the problem is what's knowns durable goods orders number. frato car to pneket ite fm posted its biggest drop in years. here's a pretty amazing statistic. in july, boeing received 260 airplane orders. in august, it received one. rowhe'al a the global sldown ina,erps coming to roost here. not good news for manufacturing job growth so pay attention to that as well. also new reports showing that people are spending less and
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less time o facebook on this ut do3%onr. ree the phone. less time on the desk top. the reason that's not good is the desk top has a lot more real estate for those ads that facebook wants. we all know touote mr. simon, these are the days thatignals fiio monres and billionaires and babies and they're all on facebook. >> he's good. >> theoy in the bubble and baby with the baboon heart but i believe. >> he did have the commercial break to google lyrics. let's clear. you did. googlell of thecs opa shdoitilli geist over musical lyrics. >> you would win that. you and show joe is one to watc. >> brian sullivan, thanks man. more "morning joe" when we come back. with the spark cash card from capital one,
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>> john heilemann, we're the last men snding he. we had ten people at 6:00 a.m story ofurve we drive people away. >> what did you learn today? >> you know, i learned that paul simon is awesome, but i alrea knew that. i was reminded that tonight at the 92nd street y